Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1)(90)
‘Something bothering you, kid?’ Ferius asked.
I looked behind me to see her barely holding on to the reins of her horse, listing from side to side as the animal navigated the uneven forest terrain. She was so beaten up that the only thing keeping her conscious was Reichis periodically clambering up onto her shoulder to slap her around the face with his paw. The squirrel cat seemed to find this tremendously entertaining.
‘Nothing much,’ I replied, turning back to make sure the horse I’d taken from one of Ra’meth’s men wasn’t leading us off the edge of the narrow path. Below lay a steep-sided gorge that I was using to guide us back towards the northern edge of town. Shalla lay unconscious across my saddle, her breathing still so slow and shallow that I couldn’t stop myself from repeatedly checking her pulse.
Ferius gave a chuckle. ‘You’re a terrible liar, kid.’
‘Guess I’d better start practising then.’ My own uncle had conspired against our people. My parents had been secretly weakening my magic all these years because they’d known since I was a child that I was going to develop the shadowblack. And it turned out my clan had never fought a war against the Mahdek people. We’d murdered them in their sleep and stolen their cities – and their magic. ‘No one is who they say they are,’ I said.
‘First thing you learn wandering the long roads, kid. Everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story.’
‘Somebody’s out there,’ Reichis chittered suddenly, beady black eyes glimmering from his perch on Ferius’s shoulder.
I looked all around and saw only trees and rocks and thick underbrush. ‘Where are they?’
The squirrel cat’s whiskers twitched in annoyance. ‘I don’t know – they must be hiding. But I’m telling you: this place stinks of Jan’Tep.’
‘What’s the little bugger saying?’ Ferius asked, a hand reaching back into her waistcoat for her razor-sharp steel cards. ‘Maybe we’d better—’
Whatever she was going to say was cut off by a sound like the screeching of a thousand nails dragged across a chalkboard. Reflexively my hands formed the somatic shapes for the shield spell I’d been taught to practise every day since I’d started school. ‘Senhathet!’ I shouted. It accomplished nothing of course. I couldn’t spark the tattooed iron band around my forearm that would have given me access to that form of magic. Also, I wasn’t the target.
Reichis leaped away from Ferius an instant before she went flying from her horse. There was no sign of any weapon, but instead a shifting purplish light that moved like water through the air, pooling around her, holding her aloft even as patches of it extended into long black tentacles and began to strike her over and over. A lightshaper, I thought, looking around for the source but still unable to see who was casting the spell.
I rolled Shalla forward on the horse’s back and jumped off to try to help Ferius. Her mount reared wildly, desperately trying to stamp at the strange light surrounding its mistress. The glowing shape seemed to take notice, and suddenly three of its tentacles bunched together and drove themselves deep into the animal’s belly, only to split apart again, tearing the horse’s insides out. The horse’s screams became a terrifying counterpoint to the gleeful shrieks of encouragement I heard from somewhere in the shadows.
I reached my hands into the pouches inside my pockets. Lightshapes can be blown apart, I thought. But how was I going to hit the shape without burning Ferius?
‘Enough,’ a voice called out. The sound was muffled … distorted. Someone’s using a misting spell … That’s why I can’t see them, and why I can’t recognise who’s speaking.
A moment later the purple lightform dissipated and Ferius fell heavily to the ground. I ran to her and found she was still breathing. But her face and arms looked as if a dozen men had been kicking and beating her all night. Her right eye was already swollen shut, but the left flickered open. ‘Hey, kid? How come you keep pissing people off and I’m the one who takes the beatings?’
‘Step away from the Daroman spy, Kellen,’ the voice called out again.
I recognised it this time, and turned to see the misting spell had been dismissed. ‘Panahsi?’
My oldest friend shook his head. ‘Not any more. I passed my mage’s trial this morning. My name is Pan’erath now.’
‘You’re a lightshaper,’ I said, not quite able to keep the awe out of my voice.
He gave me a smile that was proud and dismissive at the same time. ‘Been practising since the trials started. Since you betrayed us that first time, helping a Daroman spy against your own people.’
‘She’s not a spy, Pan! She’s just a—’
Tennat appeared from the darkness with his brothers close behind. ‘Go on, Kellen. Tell us how she’s nothing more than an innocent Argosi who just happened to arrive right before your treasonous uncle and his Sha’Tep allies came up with a plan to destroy our clan.’
Ra’dir sent out a blast of fire into the air, lighting up the forest. ‘Where’s the nekhek?’
‘Ran away, no doubt,’ Ra’fan said, his hands already preparing one of the binding shapes I knew he’d use on Reichis the second he spotted him.
Ra’fan was a chaincaster and Ra’dir a war mage, so neither of them had been the one to cast the misting spell. ‘So I guess you’re the sightbinder of this hunting party, Tennat?’ I asked.